The curved flask that killed 'spontaneous generation'

Louis Pasteur boiled broth in flasks with long, curved 'swan necks' that let air in but trapped dust and microbes in the bend. The sterile broth stayed lifeless indefinitely — until he tilted a flask so the broth touched the trapped debris, and microbes grew within days. The experiments delivered the decisive blow against spontaneous generation and won Pasteur the French Academy's Alhumbert Prize in 1862.

— Louis Pasteur, Mémoire sur les corpuscules organisés qui existent dans l'atmosphère — Annales des Sciences Naturelles, 1861